


The Cold

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Schmoop, West Wing Title Project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-08
Updated: 2010-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-08 19:12:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dean is sick and miserable, and Sam takes care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura/gifts).



> For Laura, who wasn't feeling well. Written for [**the West Wing title project**](http://musesfool.livejournal.com/1487052.html).

Dean's the kind of guy who will bitch for hours about a paper cut or a hangover, but attempt to hide any real illness or injury. So when he sneezes ostentatiously, three times in a row, Sam just digs around in the glove compartment for tissues. Of course, Dean thinks it's unmanly to have actual tissues in the car, so Sam finds an empty cardboard tube from a roll of stolen motel toilet paper (he makes a mental note to take the supply from the next motel they stop at) and a handful of virulently yellow napkins from some strip club. They have the outline of a buxom, naked lady on them. In purple. Sam holds them out without comment, and Dean snatches them, mopping at his nose with the whole handful.

Sam doesn't give it a second thought until that night, when he's woken by the sound of Dean's coughing.

"Dude, what the hell?"

Dean looks over at him from where he's sitting hunched over on his bed. "Go back to sleep, Sammy." His voice is a hoarse rasp, but Sam blames it on the smoke from the salt and burn. Gary McNulty had taken a long time to burn and the smoke had hung in the still, humid, summer air for what felt like forever while they waited for him to reduce to a dull smolder so they could fill in the grave.

Sam squints at him skeptically, and then closes his eyes. He's asleep again before his head hits the pillow.

Dean is bleary-eyed in the morning, even after three cups of coffee, and he leaves about five bites of pancake on his plate, which is unusual. Since he does eat all his bacon, Sam doesn't think too much about it.

Until Dean's pancakes and bacon put in a return appearance fifteen minutes later, in the parking lot outside the motel.

"Dean?"

Dean looks up at him, utterly miserable. "I think I just threw up everything I ate." He points dolefully at the large puddle of puke slowly being washed away by the light rain that's falling, and Sam turns his head away, trying not to breathe in the smell.

"That does look like this morning's breakfast," he agrees, lips pulled in a tight frown.

"No," Dean says, "I mean, everything I ever ate, _in my life_." Somehow, in the gray morning drizzle, he manages to look about five years old. "That's way more than a short stack and three strips of bacon, Sammy. Possibly part of my stomach lining is there, too."

Sam reaches out instinctively, puts the backs of his fingers against Dean's forehead. Dean slaps him away, but it's too late.

"You're burning up."

Just as instinctively, Dean denies it. "No, I'm not."

"Back inside," Sam says. "I'll re-up for a few more days with the desk clerk instead of checking out."

"No."

"It's this or the ER."

He must really feel like shit because he doesn't even put up a fight. His shoulders slump in defeat and he trudges woefully back into the room.

After Sam pays for another three days, he heads to the nearest 7Eleven and picks up a few bottles of Gatorade, a new bottle of ibuprofen, and some saltines. He grabs an assortment of magazines from the rack beside the counter, and pays for it all with a frown. He's got seven dollars and eleven cents left in his wallet, and they just maxed out the current credit card on the room.

He gets back to the motel and Dean is huddled on the bed, wrapped up in the comforter like a burrito. The cheap metal frame is rattling from how badly he's shaking, and Sam's heart seizes in his chest.

"Dean!"

"C-c-c-cold," Dean manages. "Where'd you go, Sammy? Was w-w-worried."

Sam holds up the plastic bag with his supplies. "Got you some Gatorade and Advil."

"G-g-good." He sits up slowly, still wrapped in his blankets, and when he can't get his arms free, Sam just pushes the pills into his mouth and holds the bottle of Gatorade for him while he takes a long swig.

"Hopefully you'll keep that down."

Dean nods and topples sideways onto the bed. He stays there, and Sam thinks he's asleep until he gives a tiny sniff, and starts shivering again.

Sam sighs. He unlaces his boots and sets them neatly on the floor out of the way, then swings his legs up onto the bed. He curls up behind Dean, and says, "If I catch this from you, I'm never going to let you live it down."

"'M not sick," Dean insists. "Just a little under the weather."

"Uh huh." Sam wraps an arm around Dean's middle--he can't really feel anything beneath the padding from the comforter and blankets--and breathes in the sweaty, sour scent of his sick brother. "Go to sleep, Dean."

"My skin hurts."

"That's the fever."

"I know."

"Okay."

"I'm not stupid."

"I didn't say you were."

It's Dean's turn to sigh, which he does with his whole body, or that's what it feels like to Sam, anyway, curled up behind him like the big spoon in their little silverware drawer. Another thing he's not going to let Dean live down when he's better. Though possibly without the silverware drawer part. Sam shakes his head and lets himself doze.

He wakes to Dean thrashing around on the bed, trying to get free of Sam's arms and the covers.

"Sam," he says, elbowing Sam in the ribs. "Sammy."

Sam grunts in pain, then says, "I'm right here."

Dean's eyes are still closed but his voice is frantic when he says, "Don't kiss the potato, Sam."

"Dean?" Sam rolls away from Dean's flailing arms and raises his voice. "Dean, wake up."

Dean blinks at him. "Sam?"

"Yeah."

"I don't feel so good."

Sam rolls off the bed and moves his legs out of the way as Dean runs for the bathroom.

Sam waits for him to finish ralphing before he says, "What potato?"

Dean cocks his head and frowns. "What potato what?

"Shouldn't I kiss?"

"Dude, I'm the one who's feverish. Why are you babbling?"

"You just said--You know what?" Sam waves a hand dismissively. "Just forget it."

Sam's sure Dean's got some great comeback lined up, but instead of delivering it, he pukes. He doesn't make it to the toilet, or even the garbage pail.

He looks pained while Sam cleans it up, even apologizes when he realizes Sam's used all the towels and the sheets from the other bed, but Sam waves him off, trying desperately not to breathe.

It goes like that for the next few hours--Dean spends most of his time in the bathroom after not making it in time, and Sam spends a lot of time standing in the open doorway of the room, trying not to puke in sympathy.

At around four, Sam's stomach starts rumbling. He calls every place listed in the phone book without success.

"Dean," he says softly, hating to wake him up when he's finally sleeping again, but not wanting him to wake up alone, either. "I'm going out to get something to eat. I'll be back in a few."

"Can't order in?" Dean's voice is scratchy and he sounds like a sad little kid.

"Nobody in this podunk town delivers."

"Stupid town."

"You speak the truth, brother."

Dean gives him a small grin and nestles back down into his cocoon of blankets.

There's no way Sam can eat in a room that smells like vomit; it's funny, after all the things he's done, that that's what bothers him, but unless he wants to be fighting Dean for personal time with the toilet, he accepts it. He gets some soup to go on his way out, hoping Dean will be able to keep it down, and if not, Sam can eat it later, out in the car. He pays with the money he found in Dean's wallet, and calculates how much they'll have left after three days of using cash everywhere.

Dean's awake when he gets back, tousled head the only part of him visible in his swaddling. He clicks the television off but Sam knows he was watching Oprah. He doesn't call him on it now. It's just one more piece of ammunition he can use once Dean feels better.

"Got you some soup," he says, holding the bag up.

Dean grins. "Tomato rice?" he asks hopefully.

Sam shakes his head. "Chicken noodle."

"Oh, okay. Thanks." Dean's arms appear and he holds his hands out for the container and a spoon.

"I think you should just have the broth right now," Sam says, watching him suck down the noodles.

The arrested look on Dean's face a few minutes tells him he's right. Dean shoves the soup back at him and runs for the bathroom again.

After another round of Gatorade and Advil, Dean crawls back under the covers. "Sam," he whines, "Sammy, come on. I'm cold."

Sam climbs in beside him, pretending he's more annoyed than he actually is. It's nice to be able to take care of Dean for once, the way he remembers Dean taking care of him when they were kids (and more recently too, if he's honest). Dean settles back against him in a motion that could in no way be called snuggling, and Sam smiles against the sweaty hair on the back of Dean's head.

Dean sleeps through the evening and most of the night, with only a couple of trips to the bathroom, more the result of drinking a lot of Gatorade than any need to vomit.

He sleeps late in the morning, and is still kind of listless and floppy all day. Sam doesn't mind. He has a book to read and when he's tired of that, he's got all the celebrity gossip rags he picked up yesterday at 7Eleven, though Dean's flipping through them now, reading out the more ridiculous stories. They don't have anywhere to be, no more apocalypse hanging over their heads, and it feels good to just take it easy and let Dean have the time he needs to heal, a luxury he's never had before.

That afternoon, Sam makes an effort to find a can of tomato soup and a bowl of instant rice, and he heats the whole thing up in the microwave.

He sets it down in front of Dean, who's feeling well enough to sit at the little table instead of staying in bed, and Dean looks up at him wearing the kind of wide, open smile Sam can't remember seeing on his face in years. Sam feels a tight ache in his chest; he can't believe something as minor as a bowl of soup has put it there.

"Just like Mom used to make," Dean says, breathing in the tomato-y steam and slurping the soup down happily.

Sam snorts and sits down across from him. "Somehow I doubt that."

"No, seriously. She used to make me tomato rice soup when I was sick."

"Oh." Sam looks away, blinking rapidly. Stupid dusty room. Housekeeping should get on that. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah." Dean looks sad, but not haunted the way he used to whenever Mom came up, and Sam hopes he's finally found some kind of peace with his grief.

That night, Sam looks doubtfully at the other bed, stripped of its sheets and missing most of its pillows, and sighs. He's slept in worse.

"C'mere, Sammy." Dean pats the bed beside him, and Sam decides not to argue.

"I take it we're never speaking of this again," he says as he drapes an arm over Dean's hip and Dean snuggles back against him.

"Speaking of what?" Dean mumbles, practically asleep already. "Can't talk about something that never happened."

Sam falls asleep with a smile on his face.

end

~*~


End file.
